


there is a devil in the dark

by Lise



Series: Remember This Cold [63]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Conversations, Emotional, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki's got some dumb ideas, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Steve is going to get an ulcer, on all sides here, things get a little rough in this place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 13:18:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13482291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise
Summary: Recent events have got Loki thinking about the Thanos problem. He has some ideas for how to deal with it. Steve isn't a fan.Set afterone hand on my throat, and one on your heart.





	there is a devil in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short fic to tide you over before the next long fic in this verse shows up. I wrote this for a prompt on Tumblr, but it gets its own fic mostly because this is sort of plot important, if by "plot important" you mean "deals with some emotional stuff that maybe has not been at the forefront but has been lurking in the background since basically post-Ultron and more so post-everything-since-Ultron." 
> 
> There's angst. And feelings. Nobody cries this time, though.

Loki had been pacing back and forth for almost ten minutes. Steve watched him over the top of his book, debating whether to say something or to just wait - whether this was one of those moods where it would be better for him to push or better to wait until Loki was ready to talk about whatever was bothering him.

It was starting to make his nerves itch, though, so he closed his book and set it aside. “Do you want to talk about it?” He said, keeping his voice carefully mild. Loki paused and glanced toward him, the guarded look on his face just making Steve’s nerves even more intense.

“I’m not certain,” Loki said finally.

“What’s making you hesitate?” Steve asked, still cautious.

Loki opened his mouth, then closed it. At his side, one of his fists flexed.  _Spill it,_ Steve wanted to say,  _you’re scaring me,_ but he made himself keep his mouth shut and wait.

Loki looked away from him. “I have been thinking,” he said, “about the future.” Steve noticed that he was twisting the ring on his left hand and for a panicked moment thought  _have you changed your mind, do you not want to,_ but then Loki added, “specifically about - the Mad Titan.”

Steve’s stomach clenched.  _Your petty defenses are nothing. Your mind is mine._ He could still hear that awful voice as clearly as if it was his own memory, and Loki screaming. “What about him?” He asked, even more cautious. He couldn’t see this conversation going anywhere good.

Loki hands twisted together, pulled apart. His fingers tapped rapidly against his leg like he couldn’t stop moving. “What we should do,” he said. “We should…be planning. For…we need to be ready.” He took a deep breath. “We don’t know enough about his plans.”

Loki folded his arms around himself like he was cold. “We should not be just sitting her waiting for him to make a move. That he found me - was able to reach me - suggests that he is beginning to move.” Something about his words had the feeling of a practiced speech; Steve guessed maybe it was, that it had to be so Loki could make his way through it.

Steve stood up and walked over to him, taking Loki by the shoulders. “Okay,” he said slowly. “You might be right. We can get everyone together and talk it through.”

Loki hesitated, then shook his head. “That won’t help. No one else here knows any more than - I know the most, and while I could share what I know-” He stuttered a laugh. “Hypothetically, at any rate. I’m not sure I would be able to get the words out without…”

He trailed off. Steve wanted to pull him into a hug, but he held back, at least for the moment. It seemed like this was something Loki needed to get out, and Steve was afraid that if he so much as moved Loki might fall apart.

“What are you saying?” He asked, though his stomach had started to churn, because he somehow just  _knew_ that whatever Loki was going to say he wouldn’t like it.

Loki licked his lips, not quite meeting Steve’s eyes. “You won’t like it.”

“I’m getting that sense, yeah,” Steve said dryly, but he took a breath of his own and moderated his voice. “Whatever you’re thinking - I want to know what it is. Maybe  _especially_ if you think I’m not going to like it.”

Loki pulled away from him and walked over to the windows, quiet, clearly trying to work his way up to something, and the longer he delayed the tighter Steve’s chest got.

“We know I have a…connection, of some kind, to him,” Loki said. Still skipping over the name, and Steve wondered if it was reflexive. “The android said that he blocked it, but if I tried, perhaps I could find a way to bypass whatever he did, and let him in. I could feign a willingness to take his part, try to ascertain something of his plans, his intentions. If I could convince him that I was still loyal, or willing to crawl back to him - even if only out of fear - then I could act as a spy for you. Seek out vulnerabilities, chinks in his armor.”

Steve fell still.

_You should have expected this,_ he thought.  _This is -_ exactly  _the kind of thing Loki would think of._

His first reaction was panic. Sheer, unbridled  _fear,_ just at the thought of what Loki was suggesting, the idea of Loki as good as  _handing himself over_ to the being that had tortured him, scarred him, that Loki feared above all else. Even if it was only his mind, that was bad enough. If Thanos could  _control_ Loki, he could almost certainly do worse.

_No,_ he thought wildly.  _No. I can’t. You don’t understand what it would do to me._

“Wanda would be standing by,” Loki said, turning around. “In case he tried to control me. She could stop me, if it came to that.”

His second reaction was relief. That Loki was actually  _telling_ him this, that he wasn’t just deciding to go off on his own without saying anything to anyone, because sad as it was at least that was  _progress_.

“I know it isn’t ideal,” Loki said, some desperation creeping into his tone. “Obviously I would rather not - but we need information. And I am the best - the  _only_ way we have of accessing Thanos and finding out what he is doing. I can do this.”

Steve’s third and final reaction was anger.

“Are you listening to me, Steve?” Loki sounded faintly annoyed. Steve took a deep breath so he didn’t yell, and then another.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m listening.” He couldn’t look at Loki, and stared fixedly at the kintsugi vase instead. Reminding himself  _he’s not thinking straight, he just went through a traumatic experience, he’s scared and this is what Loki does when he’s scared, he gets reckless._

“…and?”

“Sorry,” Steve said flatly, “it’s just taking me some time to process that amount of  _stupid_ at once.”

Loki jerked back, but only slightly. “Steve,” he said, in his  _be reasonable_ voice, and Steve cut him off.

“No,” he said, “Whatever you’re going to say, I don’t think it’s going to help your case, so just - stop there, and let me be perfectly clear when I say there’s  _not a chance in hell._ ”

Loki’s lips pressed together and he frowned. “Something needs to be done.”

“That  _something_ isn’t going to involve you handing yourself over to Thanos to be ripped apart on the off chance we can get some kind of information.” Steve knew his voice was rising and couldn’t quite make it stop. Loki’s frown deepened even as he flinched at Thanos’s name, barely perceptible.

“I can do it,” he said tightly.

“I didn’t ask if you  _could._ ”

Loki straightened, his chin lifting. “Do you think I cannot? That I will -  _break,_ defect to him to avoid a little pain-”

“A  _little?_ ” Steve heard himself laugh, though it sounded hysterical. “Loki. Do you think  _I’m_ stupid? You might not’ve told me much about what you went through with him before, but it’s clear enough. And that was before you failed him.”

“I can endure if I have a reason,” Loki said, voice strained. “If I have a purpose. Then - I had nothing to hold onto. No reason to try. Now - I have  _you._ For you-”

“I don’t want you to  _endure,_ ” Steve interrupted. “I want you to be  _safe._ I don’t want you to do this. Isn’t that a reason to -  _not?_ ”

“Steve,” Loki said.

“I can’t believe you,” Steve said. “That you’d actually  _suggest_ something like this. That you’d ever think I’d agree to it. What did you  _think_ I’d say - ‘sure, Loki, let your worst nightmare into your head’?”

“Wanda would be there to keep anything from going wrong-”

“And what if she couldn’t?” Steve shouted. “What if she couldn’t help? What if she was too late, what if he - burns out your brain, or locks you in your head. He doesn’t need to touch you to hurt you, does he?”

Loki swallowed visibly, fear flickering across his expression before he walled it away. “Whatever he does,” he said, “I can take it.”

“Why would you - is this some kind of self-punishment?” Steve’s chest hurt, abruptly. “Is  _that_ what you’re doing?”

“No,” Loki said vehemently. “I am just thinking of this universe. Of  _you._ This is something I can do to help, to help fix what I started-”

“You didn’t start this,” Steve snapped. “He did. The answer’s no, Loki. Not going to happen. And if you even  _think_ about going behind my back on this, so help me I’ll - I’ll-”

But he couldn’t do anything, could he? If Loki made up his mind, if he decided this was something he needed to do, Steve  _couldn’t_ stop him. He’d be helpless. He wouldn’t even be able to protect Loki. All he’d be able to do was watch him suffer.

He stumbled back to one of the chairs and dropped down into it, breathing hard and fast. His head was spinning, his lungs too tight to breathe.

“Steve?” Loki said, sounding distant. He just shook his head. “Steve,” Loki said, and then his hand was on Steve’s back, pressing down. “Breathe in.”

“You can’t,” Steve forced out. “You can’t do it.  _Please._ ” Loki didn’t say anything, and Steve twisted to look up at him. “You promised you wouldn’t leave. You  _swore._ ”

“We need to find out what’s going on,” Loki said.

“Not like this.”

He heard Loki sigh. “All right,” he said. “I’ll…let it go.”

Steve slumped. He still didn’t really feel like he could breathe, but his chest loosened ever so slightly. “You promise,” he said.

“I swear. I will do nothing without your agreement.”

It wasn’t what Steve wanted. He wanted Loki to say that he’d forget about the whole damned idea, that he wouldn’t even think of it. But at least…at least it was something.

“Steve…” Loki sighed. “I am sorry. I knew you wouldn’t like it, but I…didn’t mean to hurt you like this.”

“How can you think it wouldn’t hurt me?” Steve asked him quietly. “I don’t understand how you could think that I’d ever accept you as collateral damage.”

“It’s what you would do,” Loki said. “You would - you have - set your own well-being aside in a heartbeat when it means protecting someone else. That is what you  _do._ Romanov has walked into positions where she knew she would suffer to gain the information she needed. But I…”

Steve shook his head. “There are lines,” he said. “This crosses them.”

Loki sighed again. His hand moved up and down Steve’s back, and it would have been soothing if Steve could make himself calm down, make himself stop imagining Loki kneeling on the ground, alone, screaming.

“There are costs I can’t accept,” Steve said. “Please, Loki. Don’t ask me to.”

“I won’t,” Loki said.

“Thank you.”

Silence fell. Steve felt exhausted, drained; all they’d done was talk, but he still felt like he’d bled himself half out. Shaky and sick.

Loki sat down next to him, and Steve slumped into his side. “I’m sorry,” Loki said again, something small and hurt in his voice. Steve closed his eyes.

“It’s okay,” he said, even though it wasn’t exactly true.

“It isn’t,” Loki said. Steve swallowed, and after a long moment nodded.

“Not really. I wish…” He paused, taking as deep a breath as he could. “I don’t know. It scares me.”

“What does?” Loki asked.

“How much I can’t protect you from,” Steve said. He paused, and added, “that I can’t protect you from yourself.”

“You don’t need to,” Loki said.

“Sometimes I do.”

“Ah, Steve,” Loki said, and sighed. “I  _am_ sorry. You do not need to forgive me. Or say…anything. But know that…I don’t want to leave you. I never want to leave you.”

“I know,” Steve said, but what he thought was  _I’m just afraid you’ll decide you have to. Because you think self-sacrifice is how you get to be a hero. Because you think it’s the only way to save me._

He wouldn’t let it happen.

_You can’t stop it if it does._

Steve took a shuddering breath and turned his face into Loki’s shoulder, his eyes closed, praying.  _Please, God, let me keep him safe._


End file.
